My old chess foe, type 1 diabetes, has been laying pretty low for a while. Twin girl has been coping admirably well since her wobble a few weeks ago and once again it feels like we are on top of things. It will be six months next week since she was diagnosed and the world is settling on its axis again. However I still watch open mouthed when she gently pierces her skin with a needle four times a day and I still worry about her day after day out although I try not to show it.
Twin Girl: Six months post diagnosis with Type 1 Diabetes
#Fact: My seven year old girl has put a needle into herself over 700 times.
We went swimming in the weekend and I discovered a new level of fear when my daughter came to find me in the deep end to tell me she was hypo. Her skin was pale and I could literally see the sugar draining from her body and she hung onto my neck as we swam back to the shallow end to grab some much needed sugar. Any parent can emphasise with my fear, what if her sugar levels had dropped so dramatically her ability to swim was compromised? Once again, diabetes shoved me into check mate.
#Fact: Diabetes kills: Never before have I felt so glad to be British, if we lived in Zambia my daughter would be expected to live for around eleven years. In Mali she wouldn’t have survived for 30 months and if she had been born in Mozambique she would have died before the year was out.
We discuss diabetes whenever it feels right and I recently asked my daughter how it felt, her answer was ‘it’s boring mummy, I can control it because I am clever but some days I just want to eat without counting and I want to run for miles without worrying that I am going to go hypo.’ Such simple desires that she will probably not get to experience, but in comparison to other lands she gets to live and for that I am eternally grateful.
Six months on, and we are winning!
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what a brave girl you have and how wise she sounds!
Oh bless her. She sounds so wise for her age.